🦒😳 THIS is where Boston’s tall men are

Happy Friday, Boston!

🎉 And happy long weekend eve! Make sure to double check what’s going to be open and closed on Labor Day — the MBTA might have other plans. Check out the full list here.

🥳 AND happy birthday to B-Siders Vicky P, Leah Frey, Maya El Azzouzi, and Allison Surasky! Count ‘em: That’s SIX reasons to be happy this weekend. Have an awesome birthday. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• It’s time to V-O-T-E!

• New COVID vaccine guidelines

• 10 pounds of ramen. 35 minutes.

Up first…

SUMMER FRIDAYS

Sabrina, summer camp, and shopping

Bad news: This is the last B-Side summer Friday of 2025. Good news: we’re going out with a BANG!

Here’s what’s going on this weekend: 

🦒 Beat Boston’s short king allegations. Or don’t! This Faneuil Hall meetup on Aug. 30 for local gentle giants might be called Faneuil Tall, but short and tall kings and queens are equally welcome. Bonus: 6’9” influencer and basketball player Tyler Bergantino will be hosting!

🥟 Eat your way through Asia in Harvard Square. The hood is hosting its first-ever free Asian Night Market on Aug. 30, with live music, games, and LOTS of yummy food and drinks.

🧸 Salute your favorite “Manchild.” JP’s Tres Gatos is hosting a brunchy listening party for Sabrina Carpenter’s upcoming album “Man’s Best Friend” on Aug. 30. Expect a Sabrina-themed brunch and a bunch of cool merch goodies. Make a res here!

🪴 Check out Somerville’s hottest new pottery shop. If The Bright Spot hasn’t landed on your FYP yet, let us put you on: This *adorable* pottery-slash-homegoods shop in Bow Market is opening Aug. 30! Its events calendar is already stacked.

🎉 Choose your own block party adventure: Head to Lawn on D on Aug. 30 for a free music festival full of local DJs with food and shopping by Save the Harbor. Then, on Sept. 1, hit up the Speedway for its fifth-annual LDW party with archery(!), a golf simulator, food specials, and more.

🏕️ Head to a sapphic summer camp. A.k.a. Camp Lesbos, a day of queer summer camp programming Aug. 30 on the Common. Think: A campfire singalong, intro to birdwatching, pet rocks, and shirt stamping.

🥳 Party on “New Edition Way.” Boston is officially renaming Roxbury’s Dearborn Street for the iconic homegrown R&B group, and celebrating with an epic block party with free food, music, activities, AND members of New Edition IRL! It’s going down Aug. 30.

🌱 Take a plant, leave a plant. Swing by the Egleston Square BPL branch on Aug. 30 for its plant-cutting swap. Drop ‘em off, or trade with someone else. 

🛍️ Beef up your fall wardrobe. Everyone knows you can’t have too many vintage sweaters, so stock up at the Fenway Flea on Aug. 30 and 31 at Time Out. There will be tons of vintage vendors plus all the market’s food and drink options.

🌭 Ring in Allston Christmas with a weenie. The Silhouette Lounge will be doling them out for $1 a pop WITH themed cocktails (see: All I got for Xmas is Storrowed) at its Allston Christmas Eve bash on Aug. 31. 

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🗳️ Politically engaged hotties, listen UP. The voter registration deadline and early voting kickoff for Boston’s Sept. 9 primary election is TOMORROW. Here’s the deal: Double check whether you’re registered to vote in Boston. If you aren’t, you can easily do it online, IRL at City Hall, or by mail (just make sure it’s postmarked by Aug. 30). Registered voters can vote early from Aug. 30 to 31, or Sept. 2 to 5 at any of these polling sites, or by dropping off your mail-in ballot at a polling site or drop box. Here’s all the info you’ll need.

🚇 Time to mentally prepare for next month’s MBTA shutdowns. The biggie in September is a nine-day shutdown on the Green Line’s D branch from Sept. 3 to 11. After that, weekend shutdowns are coming for the Orange and Blue Lines, both of which will involve some truly headache-inducing service changes (including three separate shuttle routes?!). We’ll break them down for you as they get closer, but in the meantime, you can preview the shutdowns here.

💉 We *finally* have some info on COVID vaccines. Long story short: The FDA approved COVID boosters, but with some new eligibility restrictions, limiting the shots to folks who are over 65 or have underlying health issues. Translation: It’s going to be harder for kids and healthy young adults to access them, since doctors and pharmacists may not be willing or able to prescribe them, and insurance may not cover them. That said, many experts and officials aren’t on board, including Gov. Maura Healey, who’s currently looking to “decouple” Mass. from the federal recs.

QUICK QUESTION!

💉 Pre-FDA restrictions, would you have gotten a COVID booster this year?

ONE LAST THING

10 pounds of ramen? Challenge accepted.

For most tourists, a day trip to Boston might involve a game at Fenway or the Freedom Trail. But not for Raina Huang. 

The TikTok foodie (@rainaiscrazy) spent her sole day in Boston completing TWO absolutely wild food challenges. At noon, she stopped by Pauli’s to crush their U.S.S. Lobstitution Challenge, eating a two-foot long, $110 lobster roll with 28 ounces of lobster in just about nine minutes (the time limit is 15 minutes), setting a new record. 

Then, just HOURS later, she headed to Medford’s Yoki to take on their 10-pound ramen challenge, which, you guessed it, involves eating 10 pounds of ramen in under 35 minutes. This one came right down to the wire, but she managed to do it WITH 28 ounces of lobster already in her stomach. 

You can find her picture in the dictionary under “built different.”

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🍜 Thanks for reading! You can see the pain in her eyes after she finished that ramen …

📅 Programming note: We’re taking Monday off for Labor Day, but we’ll be back in your inboxes on Tuesday! Enjoy the long weekend :)

🥯 The results are in: 91% of readers said they would obviously come to our hypothetical epic bagel and clothing swap event … stay tuned!!! One reader said: “You had me at schmear ......” 

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].